My daughter’s birthday is at the end of this month and I am making two doll cakes along with about 35 cupcakes. To save a little more time, I was thinking of possibly freezing a serving of Rose’s “Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate Frosting.” However, I have heard mixed reviews about freezing cream cheese frostings. Does the cream cheese break down during the freezing process?

I live by freezing. You can definately freeze a cake—and I freeze them frosted. I think it protects the cake, even.

What I do is this:

FREEZING A WHOLE FROSTED CAKE:

1. Frost, etc., the cake. I usually frost it right on the surface of my cake carrier. If you are going to put it on a platter you can’t put in the freezer, put a layer of parchment under it when you frost it so you can peel it off later.
2. Put it in your freezer (uncovered). You can also refrigerate it as a middle stage, if you want, but I usually don’t. I put the whole base of my cake carrier right in the freezer. If yours is on parchment, then put the parchment on a stable surface (like the cardboard round from a frozen pizza) so it supports the cake.
3. When it’s nice and firm—a few hours—take it out and wrap it nicely with plastic wrap. A frozen cake can stand a lot of wrapping and mild handling, so it’s fairly easy to wrap. I just wrap it around several times and then make sure some the plastc wrap will be “sealed” when I put the lid on the cake carrier (squashed between the lid and the base). If you’re using the “parchment method”, you can wrap the whole cake.
4. Put the lid on your carrier and put your cake carrier in the freezer. Or if using the parchment method, wrap it in foil.
5. Two days before you want to eat it, put the cake carrier in the fridge. I’ve frozen up to a week this way no problem. Can easily go longer. If you used the parchment method, and have to handle the cake a lot to unwrap it, you might want to do that when it’s frozen before you put it in the fridge and just gently drape it with wrap in the fridge.
6. Take off the plastic wrap and put it on the counter to thaw abouy 6 hours before you want to eat it if you want it at room temp.

FREEZING FROSTING:

Put it in approx. 2c plastic containers—leave as little headroom as possible—and freeze them
Put them in the fridge 2 days before you want to use it.
The night before you want to use it, take it out and put it on the counter to come to room temp.

The main thing for both is to give about 16 hours from freezer to fridge, and then about 6 hours on the counter to come to room temp.
Beware of using frozen buttercream that is not totally at room temperature. Leave your house if you must, but don’t touch it until it’s room temp. Feel free to go 8 hours or even 10 rather than less.
Cream cheese frosting is considerably safer, so you don’t have to worry quite so much. As long as it’s spreadable, you’re good!

No problem! I don’t think I could bake if I couldn’t freeze. I should add two items:

1. If you use the parchment, when you take it out of the freezer and unwrap it, put it on your serving platter in the fridge and cover it. This way, when it thaws, it will be on your platter.

2. If you make a cake on, say, Saturday and you want it for Tuesday, you can just keep it in the fridge in its carrier. When it gets good an cold, wrap it with a little plastic wrap if you want to (not completely necessary). It will actually improve—like soup, sauce and meatballs—in that few days.

3. Finally, let the leftovers (if any) get cold in teh fridge and then slice them. Wrap them in plastic wrap and foil (it can be the cheap foil) and toss them in the freezer. They’ll keep forever. Don’t even have to put them in bags, etc. A frozen slice of cake can take a lot of tossing around the freezer and still remain unscathed.

I have one more question: I was wondering if you have ever pureed fruit and mixed it into your buttercream. If you have, has it frozen well? I was thinking about making strawberry buttercream to put on top of the yellow butter cupcakes. I’m wondering if the fruit goes bad once thawed out from the freezing.

Thank you for answering all of my questions. You have been a wealth of information!

I haven’t done this before, but I’ll bet someone else can answer it who has. My thinking is tht it might not be a great idea—the way that fruit can “water out” after being frozen and thawed. Like I say though, no doubt, someone else knows for sure.

Also, I noted that you are making cupcakes. I haven’t made cupcakes, but I assume everything I said would apply to them, as well. The only reason I mention it is that it appears that cuppies can be a bit fussy with respect to dryness. I make little loaves in addition to cakes whenever I make cakes (so that I can have an unfrosted sample), and I’ve never had any problems with them and dryness. I don’t know—maybe the paper wrappers suck all the moisture out of cuppies.

Sierra, adding fruit purees can work if you are using a stable buttercream recipe. The Cake Bible has wonderful buttercreams, including several that can have fruit purees added. With any recipe, you would need to freeze the fruit before pureeing it and then add it to the buttercream. Then you won’t have any issue with it watering out and breaking your emulsion.